Thursday, August 25, 2016

This is kind of the sequel to last week. Because tomorrow is my birthday and I don’t feel like thinking too hard. Also this is my 1,100th post. Kind of impressive.

Anyway!

Cold

Cold comes from the Old Englishcald/ceald, which just means having a low temperature. Or, you know, cold. Ceald is also pronounced with the ch sound, believe it or not, so it used to be chald. Put that with how hot used to have a K and we could have been saying things completely differently. Now, before it was chald, it was the Proto Germanickaldaz, and that’s where things get muddy. It might be from another Proto Germanic word, kal-/kol-, which in turn comes from the Proto Indo Europeangel-/gol-. Which, for the record, is in fact where gel and gelatin comes from. But then again kaldaz could be from some random word that got lost to history. We don’t really know for sure.

Cool

Cool comes from the Old English col, which is just cool (and evidently is pronounced with a hard K) It comes from the Proto Germanic koluz, which unlike kaldaz is more assuredly from gel-/gol-. Who knows why it’s so definite for one but the other, which seems like it has to be related, is up in the air. Uh…goblins? Yeah, let’s go with goblins.

Chill

Chill comes from the Old English cele, coldness. Once again, while there isn’t an H there, it is in fact pronounced with the ch sound. It’s also from the Proto Germanic kal-, yet while cold switched back to the K sound, chill didn’t. Ugh, languages sometimes.

Freeze

Freeze originally showed up as freese or friese. It comes from the Middle Englishfresen and Old English freosan. Which means, you know, freeze. Before that it was the Proto Germanic freusan, freeze, and freus. It has a Proto Indo European equivalent in preus, which means that they’re similar, but not necessarily related. Because you don

’t want things making too much sense.

TL;DR: Three cold words come from the same word as gel. And then there’s freeze.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Only three days until my birthday. Man, if you thought last week was phoned in, wait until you see this.

I stumbled across another questionnaire, this one about your personality traits, and figured why not? I sure don’t have any better ideas.

It has a variety of questions, like which picture do you like better, things you want in a relationship, things you prefer. At the end, it tells you what three traits are (supposedly) part of your personality. I got rationality, shyness, and aggression. The first two, yeah, definitely, but I wouldn’t say aggression is a big part of my personality. At least, not compared to the rest of my family. Hell, I’m the nice one.

Of course, I doubt this thing is any more accurate than that color one. Still, it’s interesting when your perception of yourself is challenged. If you took it, what did it tell you? What do you do when something (or someone) tells you something about yourself that you don’t agree with?

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Today, we’re looking at a bunch of words that mean things
for hot. Because I’m still dreaming of my vacation and don’t really want to put
much thought into anything.

Just eight days left, people.

Hot

Hot comes from the Old Englishhat, which is just hot and not something you put on your head.
Earlier, it’s the Proto Germanichaita and even earlier the Proto Indo Europeankai-, heat. And yeah, that’s where heat comes from, too. No word on why we had to get rid of the K, but it’s probably for the best. Can
you imagine if hot and cold both started with the same sound? That…actually
sounds like something that would happen.

Warm

Warm can be both a verb and an adjective, and although the
two are related, they come from slightly different places. The adjective is from the Old English wearm,
(same meaning as ours) while the verb is
from wyrman (also just warm), and over the years they just turned into the same word. But as to where they came from before, no one knows for sure. It might
be from the Proto Indo European gwher-,
which means heat or warm and is the source of those words in several other
languages, or it could be from the Old Church Slavonic (the ancestor of Slavic languages, like Russian) goriti, which also turned into several
different heat related words. Or it could be from something else entirely
because sometimes no one knows anything about anything.

Burn

Burn actually has a date on it, having showed up in the
twelfth century.
Before it was burn, it was the Old English bryne—yes,
the r came first! Bryne actually comes
from three distinct words, baernan
(to kindle) and beornan (on fire)
from Old English and the Old Norsebrenna, to burn. I guess when you
have three words with similar meanings and spellings, you might as well mash
them together. All those words actually come from the Proto Germanic brennan/brannjan, which in turn comes
from the Proto Indo European ghwer-.
So burn comes from the word for heat/warm, but not warm? What the hell…

Anyway, that’s it for today. More etymology next week! I can
tell you’re excited.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

Did we just have a visit from the Spamfiles or does it just feel that way? Whatever. I have a week and a half left before my vacation and I am totally checked out already.

Huh, I don’t remember sending this to myself…

The emojis in this one just confused me. The people holding hands and the hearts I get, but what the hell is that last thing? Because the only thing I think it looks like is a bustier which just…seems weird, even for spam.

I honestly, one hundred percent believe that the government is stupid enough to be overrun by flashlights.

Okay, it starts by saying that he’s part of the UN “Inspection Unit”, which doesn’t exist, in an Atlanta Airport, where the UN isn’t located. For crying out loud, do you know how easy it is to google information about the UN? Seriously, we need to find out where these spammers are from so we can start some kind of education program because whatever they have isn’t working.

…I really have no idea what this one is going for and I’m a little scared to find out.

And that’s the best of the spam from this past month! What about you? Come across any stupidly amusing spam?

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Count is a weird word. Wait…I think that’s my beginning for all of these. I mean, it’s true, but damn it’s repetitive.

Count—like you do with numbers—showed up in the mid fourteenth century, while the title count showed up in the early fourteenth century. They aren’t related at all. Number count comes from the Old Frenchconter, add up, and the classical Latincomputare, calculate. And yes, that’s where compute is from. The com- means with and putare means think, which mostly makes sense, although I'd like to know what happened to the P. Anyway, the title count is from the Anglo Frenchcounte and classical Latin comitem, which is…count. It’s what they called some heads of state back then. And it’s also a combo word—again, the com- is from com and it means with, while the -item comes from ire, to go. No, I don’t get that one at all.

And then there’s counter and counter—yes, two counters. One where you do business, and one that means anti-. The first one showed up in the mid fourteenth century from the Old French contouer/comptoir (so they did have an M there at some point). That comes from the Medieval Latincomputatoium, a place of accounts, and that then comes from computare. The other counter showed up in the late fourteenth century from the Old French/Anglo French countre, which was then taken from the classical Latin contra, or against.

What about other words with count in them? you might ask. Shut up, I said might. County showed up in the early fourteenth century from the Anglo French counte…okay, it’s getting a bit repetitive. But that’s because county comes from count, because apparently a count rules over a county. And country? Is that related? Ha ha, no. Not even a little. It showed up in the mid thirteenth century from the Old French contree. That comes from the Vulgar Latinterra contrata, land opposite of/land before. Oh, and contrata? From contra. So country comes from opposite. Really.

If you see count in pretty much anything else (counterattack, counterpart), it’s from the opposite counter. But there are other number count words. There’s account, which showed up in the early fourteenth century. The a- comes from ad-, to, and the count can be traced back to computare. There’s also constable, which is related to the title count—it’s actually a mix of that word and stable. You know, like for horses. Finally there’s countenance. Which comes from none of these. It’s related to contain.

Thursday, August 4, 2016

This is another one of those times where I read a word somewhere and couldn’t stop wondering where it came from. So come share in my obsession.

Found (as in create, not the past tense of find) showed up as a verb in the late thirteenth century. It comes from the Old Frenchfonder, establish, and classical Latinfundare, foundation. So no big surprises. This found is actually related to fund, which showed up in the late seventeenth century meaning the foundation of something…or the bottom of it. Which is of course the foundation. It—and fund, by the way—come from the Modern French fond, which has meanings like background, bottom, and even essence. It also had a meaning of a “merchant’s basic stock or capital”, and since money is the foundation of so many businesses, that kind of makes sense. More so than the rest of this etymology. The French fond comes from the Latin fundus, which meant things like farm as well as bottom and comes from the Proto Indo Europeanbhundh-, bottom. And yes, it’s the origin word for bottom, too.

Find, and the found that’s the past tense of find, has a different story. Found showed up in the late fourteenth century, but find has no definite date on it besides earlier than that. It comes from the Old Englishfindan, find, and before that the Proto Germanicfinthan, discover. It gets less and less like found the further back you go. Back in Proto Indo European, it was pent-, to tread or go. So because a lot of English words switched Ps to Fs and Ts to Ds, we have found.

And there are also words with found in them. Confound showed up in the early fourteenth century from the Anglo Frenchconfounder. Before that it was the Old French confondre and classical Latin confundere, to confuse. The con- means together, but the fundere comes from the origin of yet another found. See, there’s also a found that means to pour metal into a mold and originally meant just to melt something. I’ve never heard it used, but it comes from fundere (with an e, not an a!), which means pour. So confound is to pour together and has nothing to do with the other founds. I mean really—fundere comes from the Proto Indo European gheu-, to pour. A G!!! And to top things off, confundere is also the origin word for confuse, too!

Dumbfound is just that found plus dumb. Then there’s newfound, which is new put in front of the find found. And finally, there’s profound, which actually has some history to it. It showed up in the early fourteenth century from the Old French profund and classical Latin profundus, deep or bottomless. That fundus is the same as the fund one. The pro prefix means forth, so profound is like saying something is very bottomless. Sure. Why not. That’s one of the less crazy things I’ve heard today.